User reviews

Recently got a chance to see this movie and thought the performances by Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine were great. Especially like the part that Shirley MacLaine played. I am not to used to seeing Robert Mitchum in roles like this but thought he did well. He plays a man going through a divorce who meets a younger woman played by Shirley Maclaine. Having both different life experiences they somehow try to make their new relationship work. I gave this film an 8 out 10 and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was this good. Read in another post that at the time of this films release critics didn't think that Mitchum's role was believable enough because of perhaps the age difference. I had no problem with buying into this story and the actors that portrayed the characters. Good Movie!

There are no special effects, no graphic sex........just GREAT ACTING. I could watch movies like this all day and night. Shirley McLaine is at her best.......Robert Mitchum is........well...Robert Mitchum............did you know he smoked pot quite a bit? Anyway, give me two excellent actors and a great script over blowing up buses and the latest and greatest computer graphics any day. (ie; SHREK) I was home sick and forced to watch this, which is how i see many of my movies. two thumbs up. I think she(Shirley McLaine) was nominated for an Oscar for this or did she win an Oscar? I love good black and white movies. It engaged me from the beginning to the end.

Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine are well-cast in this engaging love story set in NYC and shot in gritty, atmospheric black and white. Mitchum's wonderfully-modulated performance as a middle-aged lawyer on the rebound, and MacLaine's as the effervescent young dancer he becomes involved with, mesh very appealingly. The Broadway-caliber dialogue is more sophisticated, and the emotional level more intimate, than the films the two were typically making at the time. If "The Grass is Greener", a Mitchum (and Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr!) film from the same period and also an adaptation of a stage play, is a tepid example of how *not* to bring a play to the screen, "Two for the Seesaw" is a vibrant example of how to use film to endow a play with an intimacy that would be impossible to achieve onstage. Major kudos to Mitchum, MacLaine, and the director, Robert Wise.

The frustrating loop-de-loops of an uncertain love relationship between a Greenwich Village kook-dancer and a Midwestern suit-and-tie lawyer on the verge of divorcing his wife of 12 years. Though highly entertaining, this light-drama obviously derives from a play, as the lines of dialogue have not been reworked for the screen. It gets awfully pedantic at times; for instance, we know the characters' names, they know their names, so why do they keep saying to each other, "Jerry?", "Yes, Gittel?" "I'm sorry, Jerry." "I know, Gittel." The performances by Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum are excellent (we like them even before their self-doubting, insecure characters take shape), but this stage-vehicle hasn't been turned into a star-vehicle. The leads banter back and forth in a curiously under-populated vacuum, however their increasingly tense conversations contain the startling ring of truth. Ted McCord's black-and-white cinematography provides a terrific compensation for the film's minor weaknesses; André Previn's "Apartment"-like score is rapturous as well. *** from ****

Shirley MacLaine (with an unconvincing New York accent that wavers constantly) plays a free-spirited beatnik who falls for a soon-to-be divorced attorney who's just moved to the big city to find himself. The film feels about a half hour too long and the pacing slugs along like molasses pouring out of a jar. MacLaine's character also suffers from terrible ulcers which leads to some seriously overdone melodrama towards the end of the film where she's acting like she's about to die of consumption. It makes everything cheesy. At least the ending is fairly realistic and not what one would expect from a film from the 60s.

Maybe the play was better?

This film is a good example of why I love black & white movies.

Director Wise, cinematographer Ted McCord, and production

designer Boris Leven craft light, shadow, and line into two hours of

absolutely lovely images, making the most of such elements as

the contrast between MacLaine's hair, eyes, and skin, and the

juxtaposition of the hard lines of doorframes and shadows with

the softness of rumpled fabric and fluid dancer's movement. (And I

loved the split set.) Total eye candy for B&W lovers, and an

incidental, abrupt reminder of what a beautiful woman the young

Shirley was.

Unfortunately, the script seems very dated here in the twenty-first

century. The characters' relationship is frustrating, and (reported

offscreen chemistry notwithstanding) MacLaine and Mitchum look

very much mismatched. (Supposedly it was originally to be Liz

Taylor and Paul Newman. I can't see Liz here, but a MacLaine- Newman pairing could have been hot. But we'll never know.) I

found MacLaine's character to be much more believable--more

rounded, containing more nuance--than Mitchum's. While this

seems mostly the script's fault, I do feel that MacLaine here brings

more quirky humanity to her work than does Mitchum (who I like

very much in general).

"Seesaw" stands out for me as one of those films that, because of

its meticulous attention to visual detail, becomes an archetypal

period piece as it ages--firmly among the films everyone making a

movie set in the early 1960s should study carefully.

Two For The Seesaw as a two character play by William Gibson ran for 750 performances in the 1958-1959 season and starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft as the uptight Nebraska lawyer and the Greenwich Village bohemian who find each other in New York. Why they didn't wait to get the two leads for this film version is beyond me. Both certainly are movie names and Henry Fonda certainly had the Nebraska twang to play the part. As for Bancroft, she was just coming off her Oscar for The Miracle Worker.

When it comes to playing kookie people you can't do much better than Shirley MacLaine. She does a fabulous job, though in a few years the public might have demanded Barbra Streisand for the role. She holds her end up far better than her co-star.

In the Lee Server Robert Mitchum biography, Robert Wise said that this was one of the few times he ever directed a film where the casting was already set before he was hired. Mitchum is much too unconventional in his way to ever really be believable as a family values Republican type lawyer from the midwest. It was mentioned in the book that such folks as Glenn Ford or Gregory Peck would have been more believable.

However one thing did come out of it, a not so secret affair with Mitchum and MacLaine that did threaten the Mitchum marriage for a while. Lee Server also tells a story where both Malachy McCourt and Frank Sinatra visited the Two For The Seesaw set and went off on one fabulous drunk. You're talking about three professionals in that department.

For the screen a few side characters were added to flesh it out. What interest there is in Two For The Seesaw comes from the interest MacLaine and Mitchum had for each other.

The post-beatnik / pre-hippie party scene is truly spectacular as a snapshot of a time/place rarely caught on film. While most of America was still living a black & white Eisenhower existence, this film shows the cutting edge NYC scene that had already moved beyond bebop and Kerouac and was just about to stumble full tilt into the Warhol Factory. The party scene probably seemed about as weird to middle America as the alien bar scene in Star Wars, fifteen years later. But one kid in every high school across the country changed their plans to attend 'State' and filled out last minute applications to NYU; they knew that they would grow old waiting for that world to reach their hometown.

A little known treat for anyone into the early days of "alt".

Two for the Seesaw is very heavy. It's one of those movies you watch once, appreciate the acting, and never want to see again.

Robert Mitchum is getting a divorce, and in 1962, that's not a common occurrence. He picks up a loose dancer at a party, and in their mutual loneliness, they become really close really fast. Behind the scenes, Robert Mitchum and his leading lady Shirley MacLaine had an affair, and you can see the hurt and romance smoldering off the screen. Both actors do a fantastic job and handle a depressing script with realism rather than melodrama. Maybe it's because I knew they'd had an affair, but when they argued in the film, I almost felt embarrassed watching it, like I was intruding on a private argument. It's very powerful.

However, it's a downer. It was based off a play, which is usually a clue that it's going to be depressing, and it absolutely is. Back in 1962, it wasn't common to make a movie about the highs and lows of one couple's relationship, as it is now. So, if you watch it, try not to compare it to its contemporaries and appreciate it on its own. Also, make sure you're in the right mood; if you're just coming out of a breakup, wait a while before renting it.

Robert Mitchum lays a lawyer whose marriage back in Nebraska has just dissolved. Now, he's moved to New York and is very lonely. So lonely that he calls a woman (Shirley MacLaine) he barely knows. They go out and have a few laughs, then they go to her apartment. There, things move very quickly for a 1962 movie--surprisingly quickly, as he tries to get her to let him stay. At first, she's a bit put off--then she decides to sleep with him. At this point, however, he decides to leave--it's just moving too fast. Throughout the film the two are very open about sex and the dialog is quite gritty and realistic as well. Later, they even cohabitate--something you NEVER would have seen in the 1950s.

Now these two people seem very, very different. Mitchum is well-spoken and a professional man from the Midwest. MacLaine is more a head-in-the-clouds Bohemian who is a Jewish New Yorker. Can two people THIS different fall in love and have it last? As you watch this film, you naturally assume the answer is no, as they just seem so unlike each other, argue an awful lot and what brings them together is difficult to put into words. In many ways, this odd relationship that defies the odds seems very reminiscent of THE WAY WE WERE (and you probably know how that film ended).

Unfortunately, because the chemistry seems so odd in this film and the film is quite talky and stagy (it was originally a very successful Broadway play--and it shows), it's not a great film. Most of the problem is that although the dialog seems realistic, the combination of the two characters isn't. Why were they together in the first place other than they were lonely? And why did the movie seem to go on so long? So overall is it worth seeing? Perhaps, though this sure isn't a glowing recommendation.

By the way, in a very disturbing scene, eventually Mitchum slaps MacLaine pretty hard. And, the way the film is made, it seems as if SHE drove him to it. Not exactly an enlightened scene and something that just seems wrong. And, not to be outdone, late in the film, she hits him as well!

I call this film surprisingly great not because I was shocked that Mitchum or MacLane delivered fine performances, it's surprisingly good because of everything else this film has... in addition to M&M's delicious performances. I had no idea what to expect before watching this, just the way I like it. Because then I get the 5-10 minute rule to takeover -- either I'm hooked or I'm not.

Well it started right away. This thing was shot in B&W anamorphic, and shot beautifully. The opening shots drew me in for their wide angles and good framing and nice dramatic lighting(ie what normal people call a good mood setter)... noirish in some respects. And then it sucked me right in.

Maybe because it started on the stage and the scenes were so long but the dialogue was so well crafted that you just had to pay attention.

Maybe the fantastic real life portrayals by M&M - not straying nor betraying.

But I found myself constantly wanting to talk some sense into Jerry and Gittel -- ah thats what cinema is -- the desire to find out how it ends. And what an ending it is... I'll leave it at that.

I give it a 10 because it maybe is among the very best of this category - the "realistic character dialogue romance featuring two very odd strangers (think Stewart and Novak in Vertigo)". Shot well, acted well... kept me glued to the end. I give it 10 and not 9 because well, without spoiling it -- they didn't go where they could have gone. And I think that most audiences won't understand that final point once they see it. Thats a shame. But those who understand will agree - brilliance all around.

10 from me. And thats saying a HELLUVA lot.

Many good reviews of this film here already. I'm just going to focus on the similarities to my personal favourite film The Apartment and make one other observation.

Clearly since Two For The Seesaw was made by the same company, the Mirisch Corporation just two years after Wilder's film this was an attempt to follow up (cash in?) on the success of that one. Shirley Maclaine stars in both but now playing a rather less idealised character. I wonder if Jack Lemmon turned down the chance to play the male lead because Robert Mitchum is not conventional enough to be really convincing. The soundtracks of both films are very similar and that can't be a coincidence even allowing for the tastes of the period. Even some of the sets look almost identical. Would they still exist from The Apartment? I'm not sure.

Someone obviously saw possibilities in the original stage play to transfer it to film as The Apartment 2. In my view however because the tone of Two For The Seesaw is different from The Apartment it might have benefited from being handled differently rather than accentuating the similarities.

And my other observation is this: At one point Mitchum whacks Maclaine across the face, knocking her to the floor and she hardly objects. It was probably shocking at the time but is beyond disgusting today. It means the film and no doubt the play will likely remain period pieces for ever more. Contrast that to the sunnier tone of The Apartment when Lemmon gets clobbered. It's funny and touching because we know he didn't deserve it, although in the context of the film he has it coming to him.

Oy, is this a talky two hours! It's too bad, because this film has so much going for it. Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum give excellent performances, but that's exactly what they are – performances. As good as she is at playing "kooky" characters, MacLaine is never convincing as a Jewish girl from The Bronx. Mitchum is his charismatic self, but wooden in his line readings. Beautiful black and white photography of New York and a moody soundtrack recall a time when movies mattered, but the endless, stilted, stage bound dialog ultimately goes nowhere. It's enough to drive any viewer to distraction. The story, what there is of it, appears too dated to resonate with contemporary audiences.

This is a film of a play, and it looks it. With a couple of exceptions, all of the dialogue is between the two characters played by Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. To be honest, Mitchum seems badly miscast here. I don't think he was the best choice for a lonely, insecure and lost bachelor in New York City; Mitchum begging for help from a woman who appears to be half his age? To me, it doesn't work. MacLaine surprised me, however, with some very fine acting, much better than I have ever seen her before; she was quite stunning when she was young. And she even does a bit of dancing in this movie.

I am a big Robert Mitchum fan, but he is too old, and the physical mismatch with MacLaine is too distracting.

The sets are static; the action, such as it is, rarely leaves the two protagonists' apartments. There is an interesting application of split screen; M & M are speaking on the phone to each other from their separate apartments. The left half of the shot is MacLaine's home, the right Mitchum's. The two apartments are very distinct in furnishing and style. Suddenly, the camera pans right, to focus on Mitchum, and you realize that it is one set, cleverly made up to look like a standard split screen; that is, it is arranged exactly as if it were on a stage, the left side one apartment, the right the other. Very clever! Another interesting note: during the opening credits, Mitchum is seen to be walking around various parts of Manhattan, apparently all in one day; he states shortly thereafter that he spends his days and nights tramping the streets endlessly. In order, he first appears in the Bowery, feeding pigeons in front of St. Mark's Church, then downtown in front of the landmark Woolworth Building, then in midtown, on what may be 42nd Stret, and finally in front and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He sure got around in one day!

I am not a big fan of movies made to look like plays, but this is beautifully and cleverly photographed. It may be worth a look.

If you only know Robert Wise from "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music", you might be surprised to learn that he directed other types of movies, among them "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". In between the aforementioned musicals, Wise directed an Academy Award-nominated adaptation of William Gibson's "Two for the Seesaw". Shirley MacLaine plays an eccentric New Yorker and Robert Mitchum plays an Omaha transplant who are in a relationship.

The movie feels very much like a play. Since I've never seen the play - and most likely never will - I can't compare this adaptation to it. MacLaine and Mitchum both put on intense performances, but the movie itself drags at times. Not a bad movie, it's just that some parts could've moved a little faster. It'll probably be of interest to film buffs, but not to other audiences.

It was OK to watch one and then forget about it. It's basically about a romance between Robert Mitchum, who is getting divorced and Shirley Maclaine. That's all there is and this movie was taken from a stage play so all they ever do is sit around and talk. Mitchum and Maclaine are good and is the black and white photography is excellent.

Aside from the occasionally ridiculous dialogue, the claustrophobic sets, and Mitchum's stone face, this is a very pretty B/W experience. The Dance sequence is especially nice. Unfortunately, the male/female dynamic is horribly dated. This was intended to be the meeting of 50s conservatism with 60s licentiousness. And although that dynamic still exists in our society, the attitudes that drove these characters are long gone.

The bare story is about two people who need to have other people depend on them. The power in the relationship shifts back and forth between the two characters, never actually being equal. This is an interesting idea, and there are some interesting passages. The script is peppered with some nice exchanges and some really weird "huh?" moments. However, as is most important for a closed-room movie of this type, the two leads don't really have much chemistry. You never get the sense that they believe the words they're speaking.

A tale of 'love will not find a way' as Robert Mitchum manfully looks for a member of the 'weaker sex' in New York. The story is somewhat repetitive as trad-male Mitchum tells modern girl Shirley MacLaine she is 'a beautiful girl' on numerous occasions. Both actors are very competent in this flick, with Shirl the 'girl' showing just how good she is, edging out Robert as MVP. There are scenes of domestic violence, with Ms MacLaine on the verge of rearranging Mr Mitchum's face because he hadn't informed her of his divorce papers coming through.

A divorcing man from Nebraska comes to NYC and falls in love with a Jewish woman named Gittel. This drama is based on a two-character play that was a big hit on Broadway, which is surprising because this has to be one of the most dreary plays ever written. Wise, in this follow-up to the energetic "West Side Story," does nothing to enliven the proceedings here. The film is little more than a filmed stage play where the two characters talk and talk and talk non-stop. And very rarely do they say anything profound or witty. Given the vintage of the film, it's surprisingly frank in terms of sexual mores. Mitchum and MacLaine do the best they can with the boring dialog.

In spite of Ted McCord's beautiful deep focus b&w photography there is very little in this film that is interesting to look at. As a stage play brought to film, it never manages to get off the stage and with all of NYC as a potential set, a little more time devoted to exterior shots could have opened this up and made it into a 'real' film. A few brief glimpses of lower Manhattan, Mitchum pacing the streets in the opening sequence or stalking MacLaine from the shadows outside her apartment gives a taste of what this film could have been if Wise hadn't allowed himself to become hidebound by a talky script.

Mitchum is clearly miscast - it almost feels like the overabundant dialog is being dragged out of him. But since it is Mitchum, and he's such a force of nature on screen, it's hard to mind too much - but also hard not to consider that Fonda would have been a much more appropriate choice. As it is, MacLaine has a lot of work to do to convince us that Mitch is the guy for her. She almost succeeds (no doubt the off screen chemistry between the two stars helped her a bit with this), but most of the pleasure in her performance derives from that lovable slob thing that she could do falling out of bed, as she proved so ably in Some Came Running. Problem is, she is a comedienne and Mitch most definitely was not. She could snap out those one-liners, "That must have been some bridge!", and get a laugh. If Mitch said anything funny, I must have missed it.

Unfortunately most of the film is shot in two tiny, claustrophobic apartments with very few changes in camera angle which made me think that Wise could take a tip or two from Ozu on how to make a repeatedly shot interior more interesting. When we aren't gazing listlessly at one or the other of these stupefying spaces, we are treated to a stale looking split screen shot of both a la Pillow Talk. Except that this doesn't really remind me so much of Pillow Talk, and not that I ever wanted to be reminded of it, as make me wonder if the original stage set had been carted in.

Some relief is provided by Elizabeth Fraser as MacLaine's friend Sophie and Billy Gray as the cranky landlord. At least they get us out of the house before we go stir crazy to visit a few post beat generation Bohemian style parties and MacLaine's dance studio loft space. Early on we do get to go out to for Chinese once with a real live waiter (yay!), but that is soon buried under endless home cooked meals, warm milk and the perennial opening and closing of fridge doors. It's oddly underpopulated for a Manhattan film - think the World the Flesh and the Devil - without cityscapes...

Previn's score, loved by many but sorry, I've never been a fan of that overly loud 60s jazz style. Beyond that, it threatens to over power the film by setting a jazzy New York tone that the proceedings simply can't live up to. No matter how hard the music tries, what we see is never in sync with what we hear.

Worth a watch for MacLaine's perf and McCord's lensing, but not one of Wise's better efforts.

These days women have names like Jennifer or Ashley, but Shirley MacLaine's memorable character in this film is named "Gittle". A Jewish girl in early '60s New York, she becomes involved with Jerry Ryan, (Robert Mitchum) an introspective, self loathing mid-western lawyer. The relationship becomes a bit complicated, and the two find their love cannot survive the rough seas of romance.

Critics in 1962 complained about the lack of on screen chemistry between Shirley MacLaine and Robert Mitchum, even though they began a real life romance directly after this film.